Market leader IndiGo announced the launch of its 40th destination in its network and 35th domestic destination on 10th February. The airline will launch services to Dehradun, the capital of Uttarakhand from 1st March 2016.

The airline which has been in the news recently for the slide in its stock post announcement of its record breaking results, will launch the station with triple daily flights from its hub in New Delhi, which will extend to Mumbai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad.

The airline has a reputation of launching a new station with multiple flights. The last station it launched was Udaipur which the airline started with double daily flights from Mumbai & New Delhi. Dimapur is the only domestic station in its network which has only single departure a day. The airline launched Dimapur in April 2015 with a single daily flight from Kolkata with connection to New Delhi. On the international front, Muscat & Singapore have single daily departure.

The airline has not been able to strengthen its last two destinations Kozikode (launched in January 2015) and Dimapur (Launched in April 2015). Kozikode has direct flights to Dubai and Mumbai, with one stop to Delhi while Dimapur has direct flight to Kolkata which operates onwards to Delhi.

The three flights involve extension of existing flights.

6E194 BOM0750 – 1000DEL

6E194 DEL1040 – 1140DED

6E679 DED1210 – 1310DEL

6E679 DEL1405 – 1610HYD

6E692 HYD0940 – 1155DEL

6E692 DEL1250 – 1345DED

6E169 DED1415 – 1510DEL

6E169 DEL1600 – 1805BOM

6E146 BLR1325 – 1610DEL

6E146 DEL1640 – 1735DED

6E107 DED1805 – 1900DEL

6E107 DEL1940 – 2230BLR

The Bengaluru – Dehradun flight via Delhi is the same flight number which operates Bengaluru – Lucknow via Delhi and will be discontinued effective 1st March 2016. The airline operates non-stop services on this sector. The Delhi – Lucknow leg operates with a different flight number starting 1st March.

Dehradun is the 78th most populous city in the country handled 378646 passengers in 2014-15 and is expected to be 39th most busiest airport in the country. The airport which has a 7000 feet runway which was extended in 2008. Kingfisher Airlines was the monopoly operator on this sector until late 2009 when Air India Regional and Jet Airways launched flights with ATR42 and ATR72 respectively with services from Delhi. Jet Airways later upgraded few services to B737 and proposes to fly non-stop from Mumbai to Dehradun this summer. Air India has in the past tried connecting Lucknow with Dehradun.

Currently Air India Regional, Jet Airways and Spicejet operate scheduled services to Dehradun. As per data released by DGCA, the Bengaluru – Dehradun sector carried 20 passengers each day each way, while Mumbai – Dehradun had around 40 passengers each day each way. The Delhi – Dehradun sector saw an average of over 500 passengers each day each way. The Mumbai and Bengaluru statistics show only direct flights thus leaving out the number of connecting passengers.

Dehradun will see a spike in passenger number owning to additional availability of seats putting pressure on fares. The airline could also add more flights to Dehradun going forward with possible connections from Kolkata or Chennai.

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